Tuesday, April 15, 2014

Spring Word Work

It is about that time to switch out my word work games with some new stuff.  Here is what I am thinking for the next couple of week.


Pickin' Carrots

You can purchase this sorting activity on my TpT store.

Pickin' Word Families

You can purchase this word family game on my TpT store.

What's the Ending Sound?
You can purchase this ending sound game on my TpT store.

Where is my Boot?
Grab this matching game on my TpT store.

Wednesday, April 9, 2014

Working out the Kinks-Guided Reading

Each year I spend countless hours trying to figure out the best way to organize my guided reading and each year I tweak a thing or two.  Over the summer I purchased a new easel for my back table because the one I had was way too big. 

I have also tweaked and changed my lessons plans numerous times. My first one was too vague and I didn't feel that it had enough. The second one had too much on it that I felt that I never used. My third template I have been using for a couple of months now and I really like. Because of our schedule this year I don't always get to all of my groups each day so I don't always use each block on my template but they are there if I need them. You can get a blank template here. 

I have also spent some time thinking about how to organize all of my guided reading materials.  I use Reading A to Z for most of my student books, so I don't have to worry about storing books through out the year. I can just access the site print the books I want and make them. Once made I store them in plastic drawers next to my guided reading table.  Each group has their own drawer. Inside the drawer is also each students dictation/writing notebook.

Now on to all of my games/activities. I have found that the best way for me to organize my materials is to use a binder with sheet protectors for the semi flat activities and a hanging file box for those activities that are bigger.

I also have a second set of pull draws to keep all my small manipulative that I use. ie. slinky, cars, etc.


Saturday, April 5, 2014

Editing my NBCT papers

At the beginning of the school year I posted about how this year I was taking the plunge and going for my national boards. I have spent a lot of time writing all four of my papers and now I am working editing all of them. My adviser shared this check list with me to make sure that I achieve a level 4 when my paper is scored. Here is what my paper looked like after I used the check sheet.


The check sheet was one of the best tools I used to revise my paper. I created another set to make sure that I had all of the standards need for each entry.  Grab the level 4 check list here and the standards check list here.

Friday, April 4, 2014

Kicking Off How to Writing

We have finally finished our Narrative Writing Unit. Towards the end my kiddos were so tired of writing personal stories.  Every day I would get "I don't know what to write about!" Well now we are moving on and they are super excited.

To start our "How to..." unit we read a couple of different how to books. To pre-assess students had to write a how to book of their own.



They weren't great but it gave us some where to start. Tomorrow we are going to write a class "How to Book" We will start by making a peanut and butter sandwich as a class. Then we will complete this graphic organizer to help us organize our thoughts so that we can write about how me made the sandwich. 
I can't wait to teach this lesson I know my kiddos are going to love it!!!